


Date

by J_Bell



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, promo s04e04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5161823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Bell/pseuds/J_Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma and Killian go on a date and discuss Captain Duckling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the promo for s04e04.

“How romantic.”

 

“Beg pardon?”

 

She smiles. “It’s kinda romantic. You mutinied after realising the king was corrupt, and in your brother’s memory. It’s… heroic, even.”

 

He smiles too. “Perhaps, love. But the foul acts of piracy that followed had very little to do with heroics. A dash of romance here and there, granted, but I wouldn’t call it an ideal life. Not anymore.”

 

“Got tired of all the killing, pillaging and plundering?”

 

A thumb that rubs over her knuckles. “Found something better. Some _one_ that made me better.”

 

“And there you go being cheesy. I thought this date was going so well.”

 

“Cheese has nothing to do with it, Swan.”

 

She laughs, quite heartily, and he thinks maybe this night will go better than he dared hope. He clinks their glasses together and she tries to talk about the food, but he can’t help marveling at the way she looks. She notices.

 

“My eyes are up here, Killian.”

 

“I’m quite aware, Swan. I’m just taking in the view. You look…”

 

She blushes lightly, smiles pleased. “What?”

 

He graciously lifts his glass again. “Every bit the princess. Not a treat your run-of-the-mill pirate would take for granted.”

 

She almost returns the compliment, but truth is, he looks so delightfully _normal_ she can’t. Instead, she takes a fanciful turn. “Ever wondered what would’ve happened, if we’d met under different circumstances?”

 

He laughs. “Back in the Enchanted Forest, you the royal princess, and me a pirate. I’m afraid that tale wouldn’t spin smoothly.”

 

“Does ours?”

 

“Fair point. So, how do _you_ think it would have gone?”

 

She takes a speculative sip of the wine. “Hm. By the time I turned twenty my parents would have despaired of me ever finding true love, so they’d be trying to marry me off.”

 

“Unlikely. Your parents love you enough not to force you to do anything you didn’t like. Plus, it’s not likely _you’d_ ever let them.”

 

“True. That is why I’d have run away. Bartered passage on the first ship to sail as far away from the Enchanted Forest as possible.”

 

He smiles. “I just happen to be a convenient escape in this parallel universe, don’t I?”

 

“No. You’re my handsome rescuer.”

 

“Handsome, princess? Just handsome?”

 

She rolls her eyes playfully. “Fine. Dashing. My dashing, rogue-ish pirate.”

 

“The places I’d take you, lass. The cold North, the land of Fairies with all its colours, the Coral Islands, where the beaches are white and the sea azure…”

 

She looks wistful, her eyes sad, but she’s still smiling – and he can’t piece the emotions together.

 

“Do you think we’d ever meet Neal?”

 

His would-be destinations fall silent, doesn’t know if he dares either continue or ask her to elaborate. He settles tentatively on the latter. “…Neal?”

 

She shakes her head, looks away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have– I just thought…”

 

“What?”

 

Her voice is small when she returns her gaze to him. “Henry. He… He’d love to see those places too.”

 

He forgets to breathe for a moment or two as a thousand thoughts – none too noble – cross his mind. She looks pained, begins to say that this had been a stupid idea, but he knows better.

 

“I know how the story would’ve ended.”

 

She stops. “…how?”

 

“You’d’ve gone back – a ship isn’t the fittest place for a child, after all, and I’d’ve gone with you. Your parents would have had me arrested, as per of course, and then you’d declare your undying love for me – and Henry would have corroborated that I had been, indeed, quite the gentleman – and we’d have become crown prince and princess. And we’d live – what’s the phrase? – happily ever after.”

 

The gloss over Neal – or the lack of him, and what that implied about Henry – does not go unnoticed, or unappreciated, but she’s decided to have a nice date, so she refills their glasses with the last of the wine, takes a long, philosophizing drink. “I have a hard time imagining you as crown prince.”

 

He breaks into a relieved grin. “I happen to look quite fetching in a crown.”

 

“I bet you do.”

 

“I stole one once, did you know?”

 

“Can’t say I’ve heard the tale.”

 

“Well, t’was not long after the mutiny, I was still mostly innocent in matters of magic, and we came across a map…”

 

He tells more stories and they laugh. She’s fairly drunk by now, which is a blessing – she can’t remember the last time she had got drunk, probably before Henry had knocked on her door and made the world truly magical. They leave the restaurant wrapped in each other’s embrace – for balance, for warmth, for you-name-it – and reach her parents’ door all too soon. There she trips – _complete_ accident – and falls mouth-first on him, and it’s a kiss they want to drown in – and drown everything else in, too. She _really_ needs to get her own place.

 

“Good night, Killian.”

 

“Good night, Emma.”

 

“So… see you tomorrow?”

 

“Aye. And by then, it’ll be my turn to ask you out.”

 

She smiles playfully. “What makes you think I wanna go out with you again?”

 

He grins mischievously in response. “You pictured me with that crown, didn’t you?”

 

_And nothing else_ , she almost says – and nods.

 

“Settled then. Good night, love.”

 

“Good night… Killian.”

 

There’s another kiss before he goes, and then she’s frankly shoving herself through the door before she decides to just kiss him until morning – or worse, take him upstairs despite her parents, her brother and her _son_ being in the loft. His thoughts sail quite a similar course and, with a town between them, they sleep and dream of holding each other until the world freezes over.

 

 

 


End file.
